Tench received his education in the Philadelphia schools and intended to study law, but his father determined to make him a merchant, and he was placed in the counting-house of Coxe & Furman, becoming a partner at the age of twenty-one.

[1] After Patriots took power, Coxe left Philadelphia for a few months, only to return when British General Howe occupied the city in September 1777.

Coxe's trading successes during the period of British occupation lent considerable support to the charges, and he was arrested; although nothing came of the allegations and he was pardoned.

[1][3] A proponent of industrialization during the early years of the United States, Coxe co-authored the famous Report on Manufactures (1791) with Alexander Hamilton, providing much of the statistical data.

For this he was reviled by the federalists as a renegade, a tory, and a British guide, and President Thomas Jefferson rewarded him by an appointment as Purveyor of Public Supplies; he served from 1803 to 1812.

[1] In 1804 Coxe organized and led a group at Philadelphia opposed to the election to congress of Michael Leib, and this brought him again into public notice.

He was called a tory, a Federal rat, a British guide who had entered Philadelphia in 1777 with laurel in his hat, and his group was nicknamed the "quids."